many things to think of that night after fettling up the motor and taking you back, that I hadn't time to wonder what you were after. [A pause].

Rachel. As a matter of fact, I have heard something about Jack Thornton—he's dead.

Carteret [interested but not suspicious]. Dead! How do you know?

Rachel. I saw it in an evening paper six weeks ago. It was a night you were away inspecting at Portsmouth or something. I meant to tell you. It was a horrible story. He was in East Africa—he went there to farm—he was one of a party who had a skirmish with some natives—they had quarrelled about something and he and another Englishman were killed.

Carteret [sympathetically]. Oh, a bad business. Yes. I am sorry.

Rachel [impulsively]. I was not, very—I couldn't bear to think of all that time he had been mixed up in. No, when I heard that he was dead, it was a relief. I don't want to be reminded of him—to be reminded of all that time. Oh, Will, if you knew what the sense of security and happiness is of being married to you. I do love you.

Carteret. I'm very glad to hear it. Look here; confess you weren't in love with me when we married.

Rachel. We married so very soon, you see. I hadn't time.

Carteret. You didn't fall in love at first sight as I did.

Rachel. But I was as quick as I could. Before we had been married a month I adored you.

Carteret. Did you really, Rachel?

Rachel. You know I did.

Carteret. Yes, I know it too, but I like hearing you say it.

Rachel. You ought to believe it by this time without having to be told.

Carteret. Of course I do. Oh, Rachel—I wonder if you know the absolute trust I have in you. How I love and reverence you more than I can put into words, and how I wonder every day at the great gifts that have come to me from you and the child. My life is overflowing with happiness—and when I think of those lonely days when I was going ahead thinking I had got all I wanted, and I had nothing!—darling, I must try to be worthy of it all.

[He stands up by her. She holds out her hand to him. He takes it in both his, then they part as the maid comes in with a letter. Carteret takes it, looks at it, and throws it down on the table].

Rachel [speaking very lightly as the maid goes out]. Nothing for me; how dull the evening post always is.

Carteret. You shall have half of mine; it looks fearfully dull, too.

Rachel. Yes, a letter of that shape always is. It's about business, I suppose.

Carteret [trying to open the letter]. And then the brutes stick it down so that you can't get it open.

Rachel [laughing]. No great loss, I daresay. Here!

[She throws him the paper-knife and leans back idly, comfortable in her chair. Carteret takes the knife and cuts it open].

Carteret [excited]. Oh! Rachel!

Rachel [interested but not anxious]. What is it? Who's it from?

Carteret [reading the name at the top of the paper]. It's from Threlfold and Bixley, solicitors. They're—[then he looks at Rachel as though hesitating to speak the name suddenly]—Jack Thornton's solicitors.

[Rachel aghast stands up transfixed—Carteret is so full of the letter that he doesn't look at her].

Carteret. Listen! 'Dear Sir—We have to inform you that we have received from East Africa the will of our late client, Mr John Thornton, deceased, in which he instructs us that a third of the fortune he acquired there, is to be assigned, on her twenty-first birthday, to Mary Carteret, his [he is going to turn over the page when Rachel rushes forward with a shriek].

Rachel [beside herself]. Wait, wait! don't turn over! wait—stop—I want to tell you something—first—say you won't look—

Carteret [amazed]. Rachel! [Getting up]. What is it? You are not well! Is it hearing about this so suddenly? [He makes a movement. She thinks he is going to turn the page].

Rachel. Don't, don't! you promised, you promised you wouldn't. I want to tell you what is on the next page before you read it—I know how it goes on—'Mary Carteret his—child!'

Carteret [alarmed]. Rachel! what has happened to you?

Rachel [compelling herself to speak less wildly; with concentrated utterance]. Mary Carteret is his child—Jack Thornton's child. Yes! Mary—is—Jack Thornton's child.

[A silence—Carteret stands looking at her.

Carteret [seizing her wrists]. It isn't true! [She stands silent]. Is it true?—is it?

Rachel. Oh! you hurt me.

Carteret. Is it true?

Rachel [looking straight at him]. Yes. Read it. Turn over the page now.

[Carteret has the letter in his hand still. He looks at the bottom of the page he has read and turns it over with shaking hands, and reads what is on the next].

Rachel [almost beside herself]. Now you know it's true. You see yourself what it says.

[Carteret waits a moment, gazing at the page, then looks up at her].

Carteret. It doesn't say so.

Rachel [petrified, looks at him, her lips forming the words, almost in a whisper]. Doesn't say so!

Carteret. No! [reading]—'to Mary Carteret—his [pause] god-child!'

Rachel [gives a smothered cry]. Oh! It's not in the letter—and I told you—I myself….

Carteret [with a sudden impulse of hope]. Rachel, I still don't believe it. You don't know what you are saying.

Rachel. Yes, yes, I tell you, it's true—and I've told you—I did—if I hadn't, you wouldn't have known.

Carteret. What—it is true then! and that is all you can think of—that you needn't have told me—that if you had not, you could have gone on pretending….

Rachel. We should have gone on being happy—and—now it's gone.